Do Book Awards Matter?

I was influenced by the multiculturalism of Ezra Pound, and the cultural nationalism of W.B.Yeats, the innovative writing of Nathanael West, and W.H.Auden’s use of vernacular while attending the University of Buffalo, then a private university.

In 1978, I was among those who received a $5,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to begin a project whose aim was to distribute little magazines edited by Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and African Americans. Thus The Before Columbus Foundation, named for Ivan van Sertima’s book, “They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America,” was founded. It was required that I name a partner. I chose poet Victor Hernández Cruz, one of the Puerto Rican writers whom I met on the Lower East Side.

Before Columbus became more than a distribution project.It became a service organization for writers, sponsoring symposiums, panels and readings throughout the country.The late Bob Callahan, the Irish American Langston Hughes as a result of his contacts with writers of different cultures, requested that white ethnics be let in. Bob was one of those who was responsible for the Zora Neale Hurston Renaissance,when he published her book, “Tell My Horse.” We added Irish, Italian and Jewish American writers to our board. In 1979, noticing that the major awards recognized only tokens from our literary cultures, B.C. began the American Book Awards to begin a more expansive look at American storytelling traditions and to present a more inclusive reading of American story telling.

We held our first awards ceremony at The West Side Community Center through the arrangement of poet and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe. Among that first group of winners, in nineteen eighty, was the late poet Jayne Cortez.

Joseph Papp, director of the Public Theater, sponsored the second annual awards.The event was hosted by Troupe. Among the presenters were Donald Barthelme and Toni Morrison, a future ABA winner(1988). Among those in the audience was former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka,who would also receive an award from us in 1984. Famed South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and the late hoofer, Howard “Sandman” Sims were among those who provided the entertainment.

Since that time,we’ve held events in different cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami,Washington, D.C.and Berkeley, Calif., where, for the last two years, the awards were sponsored by the English and African American Studies Departments. Several of the awards ceremonies, including the last two, have been broadcast by C-SPAN. I watched last year’s event in a Beijing hotel room.Ours were the only major awards received by Audre Lorde and Andrea Dworkin during their lifetimes.

The Before Columbus Foundation’s office is located in Oakland’s Preservation Park, a landmark site,which consists of historic Victorian homes that were relocated from other parts of the city and placed in the park. We were the subject of a Time magazine story.

Our members include writers from three generations. Rudolfo Anaya, author of the classic “Bless Me, Ultima,” and recipient of a presidential medal for literature; Cruz, a chancellor of the American Academy of Poets; Juan Felipe Herrera, current poet laureate of the state of California; translator Marie Anderson, poet James Bertolino; Lawrence DiStasi, author of “The Big Book of Italian American Culture“; poet David Meltzer, poet, playwright Genny Lim; novelist and former University of Washington chair Shawn Wong; NBA recipient Joyce Carol Thomas and Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz subject of a CBS “Sunday Morning”special. The younger members include, the chair, Justin DesMangles, host of a cultural program from the University of California at Davis radio; poet Jack Foley, host of a KPFA book show; and president, award winning playwright, Wajahat Ali, co-host of the program “The Stream,” broadcast by Al Jazeera network. Our executive director for many years, has been Gundars Strads, the son of a professor, author, journalist and immigrant from Latvia. He is the managing editor of California Management Review, a business magazine, published the University of California’s Haas School of Business. Another young member is poet Ishmael Hope of Alaska’s Tlingit Clan, whose members can trace a storytelling tradition that existed thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus.

Over the years, distinguished authors, Don DeLillo, John A.Williams, Gloria Naylor, Edwidge Danticat, Lerone Bennett, Jr. and Terry McMillan have traveled to receive their awards at their own expense. When we held the awards in Los Angeles, Danticat brought her mom and dad. A few years ago, The Washington Post called us the American League to the NBA’s National League.

Do book awards mean anything? We’ve observed that some of the best of our writers, even those with international reputations are unknown to the general reader as a result of what we feel is the narrow focus of our reviewers and awards cultures. While attending a Kyoto writers’ group, named for Langston Hughes, Japanese scholars and critics mentioned American writers who are unknown to guardians of American literary tastes. The feeling seems to be that any story telling traditions that exist outside of Manhattan are like the proverbial tree in the forest.

Those writers who receive awards from B.C. get known. Their books receive a longer shelf life. If they are academics, they receive promotions and and jobs.

Granted we lack the glitz and glamor of the more publicized awards, and we are sometimes cash strapped, but we continue to exist as a result of what Gundars calls, “blind persistence.”

Tonight, The American Book Awards will be held as part of the Miami Book Fair International at the invitation of NBA winner Mitchell Kaplan. The book fair is celebrating its 40th year.

We’ll be celebrating our 34rd. The American Book Awards are alive and well! We insist that American storytelling traditions constitute an ocean and not just a mainstream.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.